OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF TENNEMANN, BY THE REV. ARTHUR JOHNSON, M.A. REVISED, ENLARGED, AND CONTINUED, BY J. R. MORELL. LONDON: BELL & DALDY, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 109 T29 6936 HARVARD LONDON PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. THE basis of the present edition of Tennemann's Manual of the History of Philosophy will be found in the Rev. Arthur Johnson's translation, printed at Oxford in 1832. Since that time a revised edition of the original work has been published at Leipzic, and M. Cousin has issued a new and improved edition of his French version. Both these have been carefully consulted and compared. Mr. Johnson, though entitled to commendation on the score of elegance and perspicuity, is open to the charge of inaccuracy. This might be expected: few men were competent to such a task at that period. Now, however, the case is different. England has become familiar with the German mind, through the many valuable philosophical works and translations which have appeared or become accessible during the last twenty years; and most of the recondite terms have received conventional renderings. Notwithstanding these advantages, however, it is still no easy task to give at once a readable and accurate English rendering of German Metaphysics. The translator's office is at no time a sinecure. He has to retain the author's thoughts, and at the same time to clothe them in appropriate diction, in a sometimes widely diverging dialect. These remarks apply with two-fold force to scientific works. The subtlety of the German tongue and thought renders it nearly impossible to do justice to every shade of expression. Indeed, the only chance of correctly interpreting many of their peculiar phrases is by coining new words or enlisting them from foreign languages. Tennemann, being himself a Kantian, naturally views the History of Philosophy with a Kantian bias. Hence, the reader would do well to acquire some previous acquaintance with Kant's principles and terminology, by consulting the sections on his Philosophy at page 400 and seq. (§ 388-395.) With the view of further elucidation, an explanatory vocabulary of some of the principal Kantian expressions is subjoined at page vii. The revision of Johnson's text, was, however, only a portion of the editor's task. Besides having to incorporate the additions given by Professor Wendt in the last edition of the original work, he has continued the development of German philosophy to its latest manifestation, the Will's Phases' of Schopenhauer and Plancke. He has also given a view of the latest divarications of the New Hegelian School, as exemplified in Strauss and Feuerbach. Many valuable additions have been furnished by Carrière's Buch der Weltweisheit, and some, particularly the sections on Italian, Russian, and Swedo-Danish philosophy, by Blakey's History of the Philosophy of Mind. It remained also for the editor to introduce several systems which have recently obtained currency in the empire of thought. Emanuel Swedenborg was a man of too remarkable a mould, and his system too original, to be overlooked in a work professing to develope the psychological manifestations of human nature. The science of Animal Magnetism too, is now so well authenticated, and has already disclosed such remarkable phenomena in the spiritual constitution of man, that it was incumbent on the editor to give some account of it. The French School of Mystical Socialism which has arisen within the last twenty or thirty years, claimed especial notice from the important influence it has exerted on the political condition of modern Europe. Charles Fourier was a genius of too rare a flight, and too penetrating a cast, to be altogether passed over. A short section has been added, insufficient to do justice to his merits, and perhaps defects. The works of Pierre Leroux and Comte have also received some little of the notice which their merits and influence deserve. Some original matter has been added on the Idealistic and Inductive or Empirical Schools, which have lately stood forth and measured their strength in England; also chapters on the American contributions to Philosophy, and on the disputed science of Phrenology. It has long been the distinction of England to take the lead in the invention, improvement, and application of whatever is practical and useful; but she has, at the same time, laboured under the reproach that, through a spirit of stolid finality, she has been dragging in the rear of Continental Europe in the sublimer walks of science. We trust it will be so no more; and that, theoretically as well as practically, she will vindicate her proper place among the nations. J. R. M. |
